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Tuesday, September 28, 2010

30 Days of Blasphemy - Day 28 - Lords of the Idiots

Why do you come here?

I hope it's for the humor, a bit of information, and a certain degree of blunt/crass honesty that I spin.

If so, you won't be disappointed.

It was early this morning when my buddy (a fellow Atheist) sent me a link to the LA Times article titled Atheists, agnostics most knowledgeable about religion, survey says. I read through it quickly and joined the celebration in the Godless blogosphere. This story was on many of the sites that I read on a regular basis and it was all Woo-Hoo! for us.
And there was much to Woo-Hoo about.

Only 55% of Catholic respondents knew the core teaching that the bread and wine in the Mass become the body and blood of Christ, and are not merely symbols. Just 19% of Protestants knew the basic tenet that salvation is through faith alone, not actions as well.

and...

Just 55% of all respondents knew the Golden Rule isn't one of the Ten Commandments; 45% could name all four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)(from the USA Today article on the study).

Hmmm...who did well on the test? I found this chart on the The Friendly Atheist (always a good site to check out).

I guess us non-Goddies are pretty up on our Sky Fairy myths. We rock!

But then I started thinking. The more I thought the less Woo-Hoo! I had.

Soon it was Woo?

Then it was... nothing. That's when I re-entered reality.

Being an Atheist in a sea of Goddies like being the French president on May 9th, 1940. It's also like being Harold the II of England on October 13th, 1066. It isn't good. It's as if we are the best and the brightest in a system doomed to failure. We are...

Lords of the Idiots.

Hear me out! I looked at those questions (complete results here) and they are not incredibly tough. Only 54% of those Americans polled knew that the Koran is the Islamic holy book. Jesus hopping Christ, we have two conflicts going on (those soldiers in Iraq are still getting combat pay) in Muslim countries. We should invade another one (Bahrain anyone? They look easy.) and maybe we can get that percentage up to 75%.

The problem isn't that the majority of Americans don't know about their religion either. This just reflects that we are, by and large, idiots. I was reading a USA Today article on the state of science education in this country. You can guess by the title Report: Poor science education impairs U.S. economy that this is not a Woo-Hoo! piece.

U.S. mathematics and science K-12 education ranks 48th worldwide.

•49% of U.S. adults don't know how long it takes for the Earth to circle the sun.

Although U.S. school achievement scores have stagnated, harming the economy as employers look elsewhere for competent workers, the report says that other nations have made gains.

If U.S. students matched Finland's, for example, analysis suggests the U.S. economy would grow 9%-16%.

My point? Atheists look sooo smart because everyone else isn't, and that isn't good. 49% of Americans don't know how long it takes the Earth to revolve around the sun. I'm not a rocket scientist, but in this crowd I rule.

The other problem?

Dumb people vote... a lot. Need I remind us all of the last president (a two termer no less)?

So Woo-Hoo! all you want about America's religious folk not knowing their own religion. I find nothing Woo-Hooey about this situation.